Seems good, but depending on the price and availability of E8400/Q6600 processors, I'm still wondering if AMD are going to poach much of a market with this. Otherwise, it's a great option for AM2 users with older processors - it's good that finally there is something that can actually compete.

But as I said - with the E8400/Q6600 quite cheap (only a bit more than this tri-core?), and the tri-core not being a great clocker, I suspect many will prefer the Intel route with some crazy clock speeds.

Yeah, that is still the main thing that is hurting AMD in our market as far as I can see.
The chips seem reasonably competetive when you limit everything to stock speeds, but as soon as you take into account how much more you are likely to get out of an Intel chip at the moment you can see why more people aren't taking the AMD route around here.

For the average, non-overclocked build it still seems like an option worth considering though.

These new AMD chips are actually starting to impress me a bit. They're topping very respectable Intel chips pretty often in recent OCC reviews. Granted the OC numbers are not overly impressive, but at stock speeds they look like a nice competition for Core2.

I'm interested to know whether this is a crippled quad or a dual core with another core slapped on.

Pretty impressive performance from AMD here.

I always assumed they were quads that failed quality checks. What was once trash is now a marketable product by simply disabling the failed core.

Actually, from what I've read the "50" in the 8750 means it's the new B3 stepping.

That is true, but the X4 and X3 all use the 50-series nomenclature to denote the B3 stepping that fixed the TLB erratum so users won't confuse them with the original Phenom processors. Lots of folks have speculated about the triple core processors but I am going with Verran on this one. Since AMD quad-core processors all use a single die, this is an innovative way for AMD to increase yields without having to throw away an entire processor. I think a lot lot of people just have a hard time wrapping their mnds around a three-core processor - they're so used to seeing multiples of two.

Phenom clock per clock performance has impressed me ever since the B3 TLB fix, and now they are actually very good competition on a level clock playing field...but the intels have a MUCH higher ceiling. Being the same or faster with both chips at 2.2ghz is cool and everything, but when you only hit 2.8-3ghz tops and the opposition is doing 3.4-3.6ghz, you still will get outperformed in the end.

That is not even considering the beastly 4ghz+ E8500 dual cores, which are amazing chips for benchmarking when not having the two extra cores is such a big deal.

The B3 stepping was a pleasant surprise, but not enough to sway my next build from being intel for now. Maybe when they shrink their die again the overclocking headroom will be high enough to warrant purchasing one for a high performance rig. For now they make great budget or casual gamer rigs...but I wouldnt choose one for a benching setup.